Work Text:
Every muscle in Dawn’s body was screaming for him to not take another step, but he was unable to resist the tugging on his soul pulling him forward. In front of him was a rift, a gaping entryway to the abyssal void. He had to go in there. He had to. Everything depended on it.
His perception aspect wasn’t going to help him now.
Dawn let himself be swallowed by the darkness. He soon found that he was not going forward anymore, but rather downwards. He stopped moving and started to just slowly sink to the bottom.
Was there a bottom?
Normally Dawn would be terrified or at least apprehensive in this situation. After everything he’s been through in the Sea of Time, he should know better than to just throw himself into the void. But he wasn’t thinking of that. He just felt a strange calmness.
It could have been 5 seconds or a thousand years. The vague whispers he heard around him occasionally didn’t want to tell him what time it was.
Dawn was rather spaced out for a while, his eyes unfocusing in the oppressive darkness. Nothing mattered and nothing was real.
But then, he saw a light. Wait, no. It was a door.
Was there a way out of here? Suddenly Dawn realized that he has actually just walked into the abyss, and didn’t feel so calm anymore. Starting to breathe feverishly, he floated or waded through the darkness to the door, and grabbed the handle and pulled.
It opened far too easily.
Dawn couldn’t believe what he saw.
It was home.
The kingdom, the planet that he failed to protect. It didn’t exist anymore. Not that there was anything one person could have done. It still weighed on him, as he had seen its downfall in every timeline.
Everything was his fault.
But it was here, in front of him right now. It was real. At least that is what Dawn wanted to believe.
He stepped through the door into his greatest fantasy. He was overcome with joy. The pink clouds rolled across the sky like they always did. The familiar mountains loomed in the background, with their crystal veins reflecting the sun’s brilliant light.
And the kingdom itself……
Well, it was in pristine condition for sure. Dawn could see the capital city before him, with its gleaming spires reaching towards the sky like they always did. And the hills were dotted with their quaint little villages.
But there were no people. Or animals. Everything was silent. There was no bustle in the marketplace, or bird chirping in the trees, or anything. As Dawn further inspected the place, he saw that the clouds had not moved at all, and the pennants on the towers that should be moving were completely still.
This wasn’t real.
Did that….. matter?
Dawn thought about it. What did he have to live for really, everything he loved was gone. And now it was here, in front of him, and it’s not like he wanted anything else. It’s not like he had any living loved ones to pull him out of his dire mental state. He was a knight with nothing to fight for.
So he just sat down with his back against a stone wall, staring blankly at the place he loved so much. He had to wonder why there were no people. Did he not care about them? Did he even remember them? He finds himself having difficulty to conjure a single face or name.
The illusion was starting to lose its grip on his mind, but he didn’t try to fight it. Whatever happened to him would happen and wouldn’t be anything he didn’t deserve.
As if acknowledging his acceptance, the void let go of its illusion, and everything was plunged into darkness.